Boris Johnson pledges to spend £830m to spruce up Britain’s high streets
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He is also set to shift more than 3,000 civil servants to new postings outside London with several Whitehall offices due to relocate to Stoke-on-Trent, Edinburgh and Belfast. The moves are being launched today as part of the Prime Minister’s “levelling up” plan to spread economic growth more evenly around every part of the UK.
Ahead of a string of announcements today, Mr Johnson said last night: “As the country gets back on its feet, the Government has renewed its commitment to levelling up and tackling the issues that really matter to people.
“Making sure our children get the best possible education, transforming our town centres and correcting the regional imbalance of public sector roles – this is levelling up in action.
“Not only will we beat the pandemic and recover from its impact, I am determined to seize the opportunity it presents to create a fairer society, improve lives and build back better once and for all.”
The Government will today announce new local investment in 57 areas totalling £830million.
They will include a cinema and market food hall in Grimsby and an outdoor performance venue in Taunton while vacant shops in Sutton-in-Ashfield are to be transformed into offices, restaurants and pubs.
In the effort to relocate Whitehall jobs outside London, more than 3,000 posts at the Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be relocated to new offices in Stoke-on-Trent, Edinburgh and Belfast by 2025.
The move is planned to help realise the Government’s ambition of creating more public-sector work outside the capital and help officials better reflect the communities they serve.
Ministers are committed to moving 22,000 civil service roles outside of London and the South East by 2030.
HM Revenue and Customs has already begun setting up new offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol.
And Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a new Treasury campus in Darlington while the headquarters of the new National Infrastructure Bank will be in Leeds.
Several areas are also set to benefit from extra cash for improving education as part of the drive to “level up” opportunities for youngsters around the country.
Four local authorities covering Plymouth; Ashfield and Mansfield; South Sefton and North Liverpool; and North Durham and City are to be handed £10million to improve teaching in schools.
All four areas currently have a lower than average number of pupils in good or outstanding schools.
An extra £18million is to be injected into the Government’s “Opportunity Area” programme which helps vulnerable young people from the most disadvantaged areas in the country.
Projects in Blackpool, Derby, Oldham and West Somerset are among those to benefit from the cash boost.
Councils will be able to spend the money on helping children improve in key subjects such as maths and English, support pupils who are at risk of falling out of education and preparing school leavers for work.
Mr Johnson is expected to set out more “levelling up” plans in a Government “white paper” policy document later this year.
He has established a Downing Street unit to drive forward the initiative, headed by Tory MP Neil O’Brien.
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